Traditional PK-PD Indices for Efficacy – Can We Do Better?

摘要

BackgroundThe relationship between antimicrobial activity and exposure relative to MIC is typically evaluated using one of three PK-PD indices, AUC:MIC ratio, Cmax:MIC ratio, and %T>MIC. However, under certain circumstances, none of these PK-PD indices may be the most optimal. These include when the fitted Hill functions for each of the PK-PD indices do not allow for sufficient discrimination, the variability about the fitted functions is wide, and/or the pattern of dose fractionation data is non-informative. Relationships fit using the traditional PK-PD indices may be suboptimal for drugs which exhibit extreme PK characteristics such as abnormally short or long half-lives. As described herein, we explored the use of a fourth PK-PD index for such instances, AUC/τ:MIC ratio (τ = dosing interval).